Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman

I was making one of my monthly orders on Acoustic Sounds and I happened to see this box on sale so being a fan of this release I decided to go for it and threw it into my order. Sometimes impulse buys pay off and other times they end up in the “listened to once” collection and I’d have to say that this falls into the latter unfortunately. If I would have actually read through the description about the contents I probably would have known that what I presumed was the remastered LP was a “remix” LP and I would have left this set at Acoustic Sounds. The remix LP is in my opinion hard to listen too due to two reasons, one the pressing is horrible, it’s noisy and cleaning it three times did it no justice and the second is the fact that this “remix” flat out stinks compared to the original album. The live LP is what it is , it’s certainly not the best live recordings I’ve ever heard but once again the pressing suffers from way to much unwanted noise and static. The CD collection is ok I guess if digital media is your thing but the only bright spot I found was the included book that proved to be some pretty informative reading. The memorabilia is cool if you’re a big Cat fan I guess but overall this box set was kind of a bummer.
Cheers.

I need help understanding whether to crack open this box or not. This has nothing to do with Tillerman² -correct ?

The records contained within sport only a remix of the original LP but not the remastered original LP -correct ?

This 2020 remix is exclusive (on vinyl) to this box set -correct ?

TIA

Do I understand it right? This box does NOT contain the remastered original album on vinyl, only this worse sounding 2020 remix? So you had to buy this box AND the standard LP to get both??

This is one of my favorite albums and I have listened to it probably over 500 times in the past 25 years. I have several different Canadian pressings as well as early (first pressings?) American (Sterling LH) and British (pink rim Island); I know the album by heart. Almost no subtlety escapes me and I have to it that I bought this box just so I could get my hands on the 2020 remix vinyl record because I was pleasantly surprised while streaming it. It's relatively easy to distinguish the 2020 remix from the original mix, although in my humble opinion, Mona Bone Jakon's 2020 remix is even more different and impressive.

The remix is however very interesting for the fan that I am because it highlights several aspects much more discreet on the original versions and provides a certain cool feeling of hearing the album for the first time. All the instruments and especially the voice of Cat Stevens are presented here with striking clarity. The soundstage is unfortunately two-dimensional and the separation of the instruments which gives the semblance of space in the image ultimately leaves an artificial impression. Voice sibilants are on the edge of distortion during playback with Denon DL103 (conical tip, Stevenson) but are clean with Nagaoka MP-200 (elliptical tip, Baerwald).

The compression applied has the advantage of revealing particularly incisive transients and providing a certain drama to the timbres of the instruments and the voices BUT the enormous disadvantage is the disappearance of the dynamics which cancels any impression of realism and completely eliminates the atmosphere of the studio; maybe I was spoiled by Kevin Gray (to name just one) remasters but for the importance of the album and the retail price for this box set, I would have hoped for 5 stars "audiophile" treatment.

That being said, I am slightly disappointed with the pressing and the master used for the vinyl; the surface of the record is not silent and the spindle hole is not perfectly central so there is an obvious unpleasant variation in pitch, specially on piano parts. Also, the master is very compressed, which is not surprising in this loudness war era, but I expected a different master for the production of vinyl in order to respect the dynamics present on the original pressings. Early reissues, even subpar ones, are easily an order of magnitude more punchier: the piano/drum thunderstorm during the track like "Miles From Nowhere" can be felt physically in the abdomen...

The acoustic energy of the remix never reach us.

In other words, the LP record of the remix 2020 is not audiophile quality and certainly does not represent an advantage over the digital version of the remix. Both are compressed but the LP record introduces a few more flaws during playback.

In the end, for me, this is sadly a wasted opportunity.

Equipment used:

RP6/MP200 - StagelineN/NaitXS – CD5i - Chorus726

TD160/DL103 - StagelineS/NaitXS – CD5i - Chorus726

Am I understanding this correctly? They went to the trouble to produce a 2020 Mix of the album and only made it available in this box set? Even when they re-released this album in the same year but using a remaster instead? To be fair, I have the 2020 remaster and it is fantastic, but I'm curious how this one is different.